Sycamore kitchen worktop

[morfa]

I'm thinking of making a worktop for my kitchen. The top will be to fit the corner of my kitchen where the sink is. It's probably not going to be used loads for food prep, but I've heard good things about sycamore from a food safety point of view. It's going to be about 7ft long by about 3ft wide. I was planning on it being about 2" thick. The kitchen sink will go in the middle of the worktop.

There's a local (ish) timber merchants who deal in local wood and they sell sycamore:

http://www.wentwoodtimbercentre.co.uk/

It's £22.50 + VAT per cubic foot and I reckon I'll need about 4 cubic foot, so that's about £90 + VAT. Seems like an ok price to me.

In the future I'm planning on making a kitchen table and a small kitchen island / food prep station all with sycamore tops, hence using sycamore for the worktop.

I'm planning on going off and buying the wood later on today, but was just wondering on a scale of 1 to 10 how daft an idea is this?

 

[Richard T]

I'd say it's not daft at all. Sycamore is a very good anti - bacterial and although not native, it has been around here long enough to be the 'traditional' choice for kitchen surfaces, bowls, plates, spoons etc.

 

[paulm]

I'd be worried it may be a bit soft for a worktop unless it's one of the harder maple types ?

Beech (or hard maple) is more commonly used I believe as it wears better in theory ?

Stand to be corrected though

Cheers, Paul

 

[longinthetooth]

You don't seem to have allowed for waste in your calcs? If it's t&t you're more likely to need 8 ft3. Even if it's s-e you're rather tight.

Sycamore will work fine as worktop but less good near a sink esp if it overhangs a belfast one. I def wouldn't choose it for a drainer.

 

[morfa]

I worked it out as being 3.67 cubic feet, so have rounded up to 4 cubic feet.

At the moment, I'm thinking that I might start with one of the smaller worktops, despite the lack of a worktop around the sink being the more pressing need, it might be much better to make a small top to go around the cooker and then work up to doing the sink on. The cooker is in an alcove and has 1 ft wide gaps either side of it, so I can just make a couple of small worktops for that. Which will be good practice for the larger sink top.

I had been thinking I'd prefer a butler type sink and I think it would fit in better, but the lack of a draining board has put me off, so I might go for a more 'standard' 1 & 1/2 bowl sink with drainer.

Probably the most annoying thing about it all is that the timber merchants doesn't open on a Saturday, so I can't go up at the weekend. So I need to take a day off work to go buy the wood if I want the sycamore. Still it seems like an interesting place, so I guess it'll be nice enough just to pop up there and see what it's like.

I'm basically sitting in the kitchen at the moment with a cuppa having a look at what needs to be done and what I want to do with it all. Hence the change of mind.

 

[twothumbs]

Perfectly good. Watch around the sinks and too much water. I made chopping boards out of 30mm or 11/4 and they are all still good nearly 35 years on. The wood takes serious knife abuse and can be cleaned up if necessary. I did it once for a relation. At 2" thick you will want to allow it to sttle in for awhile. You will want to watch the moist content as yards only need to sell to about just under 20% or there abouts.....though I stand corrected..... No finish on it. There are threads about treating or not treating a while back...possibly by Jacob. Presumably you are gluing up in strips. Should make a good kitchen. Hard work when 2" thick lugging it around to work on. Remember allowing mrovement...don't know it without looking it up. Perhaps just sit it on pins. Best wishes.

 

[longinthetooth]

Ask the yard what the mc is when you're looking. If they can't tell you, then forget it. If it's kilned then it should be 10 - 12%.

I still can't figure your original quantity which seemed to be net measure. Are you planning to buy it s-e & cut to size? If so it's likely to be a higher price per ft3 (since the mill's carrying the waste, not you).

Sycamore without a finish near a sink will be disastrous if there's any exposed endgrain - it will rot! Elsewhere without a finish it will get stained and grubby. A worktop isn't a chopping board, it gets used in a different way.

 

[morfa]

Just got back from the yard. I ended up buying a piece 13" wide and just under 8ft long and 2 1/4" thick. Which was £43. Here's a piccy:

So that'll be perfect for doing the worktop next to the cooker. I'm giving doing the sink worktop a miss for now. Once I've done the cooker stuff, I'll move on to the larger stuff.

longinthetooth - It's mostly air-dried at the yard I went to. They do some kilned stuff, but not much. I'm planning on leaving it till the end of September till I work on it. It'll be sitting in the house. Partly cause I've got something else to finish off and partly cause I'm on holiday soon.

Not sure was t&t is? s-e is 'straight-edge'? Basically the yard has sheds and sheds of British hardwoods. They said they'd plane and cut the wood however I asked for, but obviously (and I assume this is standard) I'll buy the wood, they'll price it up and then cut it up for me, so I'll pay for all the waste. Net measurement? Again, not 100% what you mean there. But after having visited the yard, you're 100% right, I would need a lot more, to account for wastage.

Bonus points however, the chap said they'll be opening on Saturdays soon. Also he said if I was going to buy some wood, they'd open up on a Saturday for me. Very friendly guys, lovely setting and wonderful wood.

http://www.wentwoodtimbercentre.co.uk/ - this was where I went. It's near Newport in Wales.

 

[longinthetooth]

It's spalted!!! Make sure it hasn't started to go soft in places. Spalting comes from fungal activity that's arrested when the wood's dried - it is the beginnings of decay.

T&t means through & through (sawn) - ie with bark down each side. Then you get 1se (square edge) or 2se. If you'd got them to probe what you got with a moisture meter you'd have more of a clue about how long to keep it in the house for before using it, esp since it's going next to the cooker.

Net measure from the user's point of view is the nominal content of the finished work without taking account of the waste. For native hardwoods sawn t&t it's normal to allow about 100% waste over net measure. It relates the work content to the sawn boards you have to buy.

 

[murdoch]

For the finish i would highly reccommend osmo worktop oil. very water and stain repellent and gives a lovely satin finish. have used it in our kitchen making business for years and worktops look great for years to come.

 

[morfa]

Dredging this up a bit, I've had the wood above in my hallway for the past 2 months and it's not moved a jot. So I've gotten some more sycamore on the way (clean this time, no spalting) which I'm picking up at the weekend. Which is for the main run of the worktop.

For the Osmo, I can see Osmo Top Oil:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-Osmo-Top- ... 6fcf3b18a7

and Osmo Hard Wax:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Osmo-Polyx-Ha ... 2a2930e1cb

Which is best? The top oil?

 

[joethedrummer]

Hi morfa,, looking forward to seeing some pics of your install,, I will go along with murdoch on the osmo oil,,,
Thats a real nice piece of wood, but for a worktop I think it will look real tasty without the spalting,,when you fit around a butler sink,
,,,,,,joe,,,,

 

[marcros]

i havent used osmo products, but will oil not turn it a nasty yellow colour?

 

[morfa]

Hi morfa,, looking forward to seeing some pics of your install,, I will go along with murdoch on the osmo oil,,,
Thats a real nice piece of wood, but for a worktop I think it will look real tasty without the spalting,,when you fit around a butler sink,
,,,,,,joe,,,,

Joe - The pictured piece of wood is going in the fireplace next to the cooker.

I've got some non-spalted (well not 100%, but it's much much cleaner) for the main work top. I'm not putting a butler sink in, as I don't think they're really very practical. I don't want to use a wooden work top as a drainer, as it just doesn't seem like a good idea. As a result I'm planning on buying a 1.5 bowl metal Franke sink (my plumber has one and he reckons they're a decent price for the quality).

macros - I don't know, but a lot of folk recommend it.

 

[custard]

i havent used osmo products, but will oil not turn it a nasty yellow colour?

I agree. Osmo is very slightly less yellowing than Danish, but there's not a huge amount in it. All oils seem to yellow pale timbers to some extent, personally I really dislike the yellowing effect but the only way to prevent it with a brushed/ragged on application is to use one of the water based acrylic finishes, and they're not hugely scuff or water resistant.

 

[morfa]

It does seem that I'm going to have to go with Osmo, unless anyone has a better idea?

As I've found that you can get drainers which just sit on top of the work top, I'm going back to the butler sink idea. So basically routing out a square and then putting the sink on a cabinet underneath the work top. I think I can probably do the routing and make a neat job of it. So that should be ok.

However I'm worried that the exposed endgrain will rot and get stained. Any one got one? Any opinions from the professionals on here?

 

[marcros]

I seem to remember Osmo do a lot of sample pots of their products. Would be worth trying it out on an offcut first.

 

[morfa]

After a bit of looking around:

Osmo Top Oil in either 3058 (Clear Matt), 3068 (Natural) or 3061 (Acacia) with free express delivery by courier. The 3068 natural version is similar to the 3058 but contains a small amount of white pigment to offset the slight yellowing that is caused by standard oils such as the 3058. If you are in any doubt we always advise doing a test on a small inconspicuous area first.

So it might be well worth getting the Natural one and seeing what that is like.

 

[joethedrummer]

Hi again,,
We laid a kitchen floor for a lady sometime back and recalled that she had a wood worktop (think it was australian blackbutt ) into which was fitted a set in white basin because she was concerned about the endgrain becoming stained.
Gave her a call and she said the sink make was Abode which her fitter got from his local supplier and then she said she looked on the Kitchen sink co website for inspiration.
Hey the floor must have been OK because she was quite happy to help !!
............joe,,,

 

[morfa]

Joe - Thanks for that. Did you just ring her up for me? Thanks for that mate, really appreciate it.

These are the sinks you mean:

http://www.kitchensinkco.com/public/pro ... urer=Abode

Wickes sell something sort of similar:

http://www.wickes.co.uk/ceramic-farmhou ... vt/206993/

However on the same website I've found these:

http://www.kitchensinkco.com/public/pro ... tail/3521/

Which look really nice. As the kitchen is my domain (wife is of the 'won't cook' variety) I do the the final veto, but I'll wave these under the wife's nose this evening and see what she thinks. I like that kitchensinkco website, lots of nice stuff.